It’s a good thing Janelle Monáe is so remarkably talented, audaciously creative and utterly riveting to watch. Otherwise, I might feel compelled to take the young visionary to task over her long-awaited performance at House of Blues Anaheim, her first major appearance in Orange County.

Local admirers, particularly those who filled the Downtown Disney joint to capacity Tuesday night, will recall that in early November, days after she wowed at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, Monáe’s planned debut at the Mouse House was postponed mere hours before doors were supposed to open, due to illness. Dates in San Diego and Phoenix also had to be pushed back.

Under strict doctor’s orders to rest – “not doing so could possibly result in damage to my vocal cords,” she explained in an apologetic statement – the sci-fi-steeped singer quickly announced a makeup date while noting that “apparently even the most expertly designed android breaks down sometimes and must recharge.”

A little more than two months later, the 28-year-old innovator arrived this week fully reinvigorated, delivering a powerhouse performance that vividly illustrated why Monáe ranks high among the most exciting and daring artists to emerge in the past decade.

Her lengthy yet strangely skimpy set – just nine songs in the main set, followed by four more across two encores that lasted almost as long – had much of the look and feel of her galvanizing turns at Coachella last April, albeit with sharper attention to detail and considerably more narrative cohesion. Whereas those blustery desert gigs played out as samplers, with no sneak-peeks of her bold third album The Electric Lady (which dropped in September), in Anaheim the striking figure with the wild pompadour had time to stretch out and explore the contours of her deepening catalog.

An even more adventurous retro-modern amalgamator than former touring partner Bruno Mars, Monáe unabashedly culls from all corners of black music’s glorious past, repackaging it in futurism heavy on Blade Runner-like dystopia and adding dance moves that are equal parts James Brown and Michael Jackson (she’s a most fluid moonwalker).

Junkies for old-school soul-rock dig her in part for overt nods to forebears in her songs. “Victory,” arguably her most revealing piece, builds on the chording of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing.” Her latest title track blissfully evokes Sly & the Family Stone circa ’73. The hyper calypso of “Ghetto Woman” seems like a stray from Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life.

Not all sources of inspiration are from that era – “Q.U.E.E.N.” hits hard like Janet Jackson hasn’t since the ’90s. But apart from outta-space idiosyncrasies perhaps learned from George Clinton’s Parliament period, Monáe’s clearest influence is Prince, whom she evokes in both style (sleek outfits, imaginary album landscapes, eccentric alter egos blurring identity lines) and sound (there’s a reason she sought out his distinctive falsetto and fretwork for her latest suite-opener, “Givin Em What They Love”).

You could spot that purple vibe all over Tuesday’s stark black-and-white (but mostly white) production, from the Revolution-ary feel of her nine-member band, and the way she led them through elongated jams, to her suggestive (and sometimes spastic) grooving and expert command of her audience, at one point subduing them enough to roam the floor undisturbed.

Then there was her cover choice: amid her first encore, after elating that throng with the breakthrough hit “PrimeTime,” she cut a rug to Prince’s rave-up “Let’s Go Crazy.” It was a gleeful hoot, although its joy only underscored that Monáe had curiously trimmed another staple of her sets, a spot-on version of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” played at virtually all other shows on this tour. In L.A., she included not only that one but an extra, “Mushrooms & Roses.”

No one could suggest she owed fans in Anaheim anything more than a superb performance, which is undeniably what she provided. But though she did thank them for dealing with the postponement, it’s hard not to think she missed an opportunity to reward that patience with a little something special.

Or maybe it’s just getting time for Monáe to rethink and expand her approach. Her show lasted more than 100 minutes yet barely touched on the second of her new album’s two suites and only skimmed her earlier work? That might explain how an experience so satisfying still left me with a slightly empty feeling.

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